Ray Jordan Achan

(Re)Imagining Greenpoint's Green Waters
Artistic Discipline: Performing Arts
Category: Creative Equations Fund: Justice, Equity, & Sustainability
Grant Year: 2022
Location: Greenpoint
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(Re)Imagining Greenpoint’s Green Waters integrates artistic programming with community sustainability initiatives to bring wider attention to the polluted waters of Newtown Creek, offering methods that use community participation, techniques of ARTIVISM within an abolitionist framework, and aesthetics of “Theater of the Oppressed” to promote remediation of the Creek. This project aims to repair the relationship between residents from neighborhoods along Newtown Creek by making the Creek widely accessible to the public. By working with the Newtown Creek Nature Walk, and local nonprofits and businesses our project will showcase the waterfront as a place of pleasure and community building. An interactive public arts festival will be hosted at Kingsland Wildflowers. The festival will feature local artists and community members educating audiences about the ongoing environmental struggles at Newtown Creek. Each artist will have their own salon for community members to easily view and move through and the festival will act as an entry point for residents to share concerns about climate change and racial/environmental justice. It will culminate in the presentation of a sculpted podium which will serve as a symbol for the ongoing community work that needs to be done to bring attention to the Superfund site.